Akasha
The Only Truth
- Location
- 「̛̛́́ ͏̨҉̕͏ ͏̶̴」
I see that Leroy Jenkins managed to pass on his genes.
That's a problem.
Perchance to Dream (Mass Effect / Commander)
- Thread starter Drich
- Start date
I see that Leroy Jenkins managed to pass on his genes.
That's a problem.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Considering that humans in this verse can get rezzed easier than wizards in Magicka, it's really not.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
So we have a race of infinitely resurrecting psychic lemmings.
Good to know.
3% population growth. That means a growing number of humans who have no personal experience with the concept of self preservation. The idea that death is forever will be alien to them.
God, it's like 16 year old Americans on steroids!
God, it's like 16 year old Americans on steroids!
Dragonskyt
Ashen one, hearest thou my voice, still?
- Location
- Kiln of the First Flame
Gotta show love for Pluto.
Amberion
Mighty #9
The Reapers are going to be FURIOUS.
And using a basic compound interest calculator we can see by how much (since we don't need to estimate death rates anymore...).
Assume 10 billion humans in 2100. Lowballing, likely, real world estimates say there should be 11.2 billion by that point, and using the 3% growth rate Drich gave us puts humanity at roughly 311 trillion people 350 years later.
So, let's do a quick FTFY:
.IronSun.
I don't descriminate, I hate all of you equally.
- Location
- IN UR BASE, PUNCHIN UR DOODZ
Especially with instant teleportation and rezzing. Humans can run from any fight they can't win, taking their infrastructure with them. The only way the Reapers could counter that would be to spread themselves so thin that no individual Reaper would have any backup whatsoever. Meanwhile, if any single human notices a worthwhile target nearly the entire species can teleport in, smash it and then be in the other side of the galaxy in about five minutes.
Humans may not have the tech available yet to fight the Reapers in any practical manner, but are already unconquerable just due to sheer logistics.
Humans may not have the tech available yet to fight the Reapers in any practical manner, but are already unconquerable just due to sheer logistics.
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I wonder if the humans will figure out how to extract the trapped minds in a reaper, even if they just store them in the Dream it means that all those races can be brought back.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Fairly sure the Dreamer taught them how.
Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Or at least left clues on how. It is probably something related to how they survive their own deaths and how they access the Dream.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Nah, I mean, outright told them how.
Remember the whole talk about how to fracture the hive-mind into the original singular minds, then retrieve and heal them?
- Location
- Seattle, Washington, USA
So did Leroy. World of Warcraft rezzing is even easier than psionic humans in this story.
3.6
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
3.6
+++
The facility was old. Ancient and decrepit in a way that only relics of a long lost age could be.
Which was fitting, because that was exactly what it was. An old, ancient facility, built in the past at a point when Humanity didn't even have agriculture.
About fifty thousand years ago, to use less flowery language.
Marcus looked around, examining the facility. Astral forms flickered in and out of view around him, remaining ethereal so that they didn't accidentally cause more damage to the ancient facility.
It certainly looked the part. Cracks, disrepair, parts of it caved-in. Even so, what was intact was impressive. The materials it was made of; gleaming silver mixed with energetic green, compact, dense, strong, and hinting at materials science that surpassed Humanity's own. The power core; surviving for over fifty thousand years, and only now reaching the end of its lifespan. The ships, deeper in the facility, massive, ancient, old, most of them in a state of disrepair, but all of them equipped with technologies fashioned by alien hands. The data banks; A set of geometric shapes, looking as if they had come straight out of Tron, with all the glowing lines on its form.
And, of course, the thing that had led Humanity straight to it; a strange device, fluctuating and malfunctioning only now, after fifty thousand years of neglect. The shifting magnetic fields had only been a side effect of the device's malfunctioning. The true purpose of it had been significantly more esoteric.
The device altered mass. Oh, the engineers had been excited when they heard that. It had taken them very little time to deduce the source; a strange material inside the device, reacting to electric currents.
It had taken slight more time to find some of it that wasn't in use, but there had been a mostly depleted storage that still had some traces. Traces that had shortly been assimilated and even more shortly replicated for experimentation.
They did so love having interesting things to poke at. And it was very interesting indeed, because in the entire facility, in the strange material, in the construction and the design, nobody found even the slightest hint of the one thing that had redefined Humanity.
Not even the slightest hint of psionics. Psychic energy, nowhere to be found. The construction material, dense and tough and normal. The generator, potent, long-lasting, giving the finger to thermodynamics, and entirely permitted by conventional phenomena. The strange materials' mass-altering properties were mundane in its physics, and non-existent in its psychic bullshit.
Which was... something. It was definitely something.
Marcus sighed, closing his eyes and reopening them on the other side of the system. His body was exactly where he had left it. He didn't even have anything drawn on him in permanent marker. The kids were slipping. Or, more likely, too busy somewhere else. Plenty of people around not paying attention. Something so simple and harmless wasn't going to raise it, either.
Especially with the recent discovery.
Ancient alien ruins on Mars.
How.. appropriate that was. All that old fiction and-
His thoughts were interrupted when a presence poked at his mind, getting his attention before leaving.
His eyebrow rose. It was rare that the Psi-Net broadcasted any alerts.
What could it be?
> Psi-Net Connection Established.
> PSIDENT: Marcus Simon De'mire (#1)
> Status: Alpha-Green.
> Alert: Priority Broadcast (Classification Alpha-Alpha-Alpha)
The other eyebrow joined the first. Triple Alpha classifications meant something that was going to affect the entirety of Humanity.
> "Display."
> Displaying.
"FTL just became easy. That weird element we picked up from the Mars ruins can generate fields where the speed of light is higher than normal. Accelerating to FTL speeds inside this field lets you travel at FTL speeds in normal space. Needs more examination ASAP. Marking AAA because this is important for everyone."
Oh.
Well. The priority level suddenly made a lot of sense.
And it had barely been an hour since the discovery, too...
A group brushed against his mind just as he was about to start his own.
+++
2106:
The effects in the aftermath of the discovery is felt all over. Most prominent of the effects is the discovery of a strange, mass-altering material, later named Element Zero. With this discovery comes a way of achieving easy FTL, at distances greater and more reliable than teleportation or spatial portals. The other things that can be achieved with Element Zero are less important, with psychic or psytech equivalents already in place, but that doesn't stop anybody from incorporating Element Zero into existing psytechnology.
Less prominent is the other alien technologies. This should not be misinterpreted to say that they're unimportant. They're not, they're just less important in the face of Element Zero. Study of other examples of alien technology rapidly accelerates Humanity's own technological development in many areas.
Before the end of the year, the decision is made to assimilate the ruins and all things in it. This progresses as expected, and is immediately replicated all across the solar system.
2107:
The decision to assimilate the ruins quickly proves its worth, as it allows scientists to run any number of invasive, potentially destructive, or dangerous tests, and still have a completely untouched set of ruins at the end of the day.
Given that, it does not take very long to start sussing out what does and what does not work. As the experiments continue, scientists start getting closer and closer to unlocking the secrets of the ruins, the data banks especially.
The method of safely taking data from the archives is found at the end of January, happening alongside the discovery that the data banks interface directly with brains, rather than interfacing with computers.
It's a method of information storage not unlike the Psi-Net, and because of this similarity, it does not take very long to begin decoding it.
The alien species called themselves Protheans; and as far as anybody can tell, they were wiped out by the Harvesters.
+++
The facility was old. Ancient and decrepit in a way that only relics of a long lost age could be.
Which was fitting, because that was exactly what it was. An old, ancient facility, built in the past at a point when Humanity didn't even have agriculture.
About fifty thousand years ago, to use less flowery language.
Marcus looked around, examining the facility. Astral forms flickered in and out of view around him, remaining ethereal so that they didn't accidentally cause more damage to the ancient facility.
It certainly looked the part. Cracks, disrepair, parts of it caved-in. Even so, what was intact was impressive. The materials it was made of; gleaming silver mixed with energetic green, compact, dense, strong, and hinting at materials science that surpassed Humanity's own. The power core; surviving for over fifty thousand years, and only now reaching the end of its lifespan. The ships, deeper in the facility, massive, ancient, old, most of them in a state of disrepair, but all of them equipped with technologies fashioned by alien hands. The data banks; A set of geometric shapes, looking as if they had come straight out of Tron, with all the glowing lines on its form.
And, of course, the thing that had led Humanity straight to it; a strange device, fluctuating and malfunctioning only now, after fifty thousand years of neglect. The shifting magnetic fields had only been a side effect of the device's malfunctioning. The true purpose of it had been significantly more esoteric.
The device altered mass. Oh, the engineers had been excited when they heard that. It had taken them very little time to deduce the source; a strange material inside the device, reacting to electric currents.
It had taken slight more time to find some of it that wasn't in use, but there had been a mostly depleted storage that still had some traces. Traces that had shortly been assimilated and even more shortly replicated for experimentation.
They did so love having interesting things to poke at. And it was very interesting indeed, because in the entire facility, in the strange material, in the construction and the design, nobody found even the slightest hint of the one thing that had redefined Humanity.
Not even the slightest hint of psionics. Psychic energy, nowhere to be found. The construction material, dense and tough and normal. The generator, potent, long-lasting, giving the finger to thermodynamics, and entirely permitted by conventional phenomena. The strange materials' mass-altering properties were mundane in its physics, and non-existent in its psychic bullshit.
Which was... something. It was definitely something.
Marcus sighed, closing his eyes and reopening them on the other side of the system. His body was exactly where he had left it. He didn't even have anything drawn on him in permanent marker. The kids were slipping. Or, more likely, too busy somewhere else. Plenty of people around not paying attention. Something so simple and harmless wasn't going to raise it, either.
Especially with the recent discovery.
Ancient alien ruins on Mars.
How.. appropriate that was. All that old fiction and-
His thoughts were interrupted when a presence poked at his mind, getting his attention before leaving.
His eyebrow rose. It was rare that the Psi-Net broadcasted any alerts.
What could it be?
> Psi-Net Connection Established.
> PSIDENT: Marcus Simon De'mire (#1)
> Status: Alpha-Green.
> Alert: Priority Broadcast (Classification Alpha-Alpha-Alpha)
The other eyebrow joined the first. Triple Alpha classifications meant something that was going to affect the entirety of Humanity.
> "Display."
> Displaying.
"FTL just became easy. That weird element we picked up from the Mars ruins can generate fields where the speed of light is higher than normal. Accelerating to FTL speeds inside this field lets you travel at FTL speeds in normal space. Needs more examination ASAP. Marking AAA because this is important for everyone."
Oh.
Well. The priority level suddenly made a lot of sense.
And it had barely been an hour since the discovery, too...
A group brushed against his mind just as he was about to start his own.
+++
2106:
The effects in the aftermath of the discovery is felt all over. Most prominent of the effects is the discovery of a strange, mass-altering material, later named Element Zero. With this discovery comes a way of achieving easy FTL, at distances greater and more reliable than teleportation or spatial portals. The other things that can be achieved with Element Zero are less important, with psychic or psytech equivalents already in place, but that doesn't stop anybody from incorporating Element Zero into existing psytechnology.
Less prominent is the other alien technologies. This should not be misinterpreted to say that they're unimportant. They're not, they're just less important in the face of Element Zero. Study of other examples of alien technology rapidly accelerates Humanity's own technological development in many areas.
Before the end of the year, the decision is made to assimilate the ruins and all things in it. This progresses as expected, and is immediately replicated all across the solar system.
2107:
The decision to assimilate the ruins quickly proves its worth, as it allows scientists to run any number of invasive, potentially destructive, or dangerous tests, and still have a completely untouched set of ruins at the end of the day.
Given that, it does not take very long to start sussing out what does and what does not work. As the experiments continue, scientists start getting closer and closer to unlocking the secrets of the ruins, the data banks especially.
The method of safely taking data from the archives is found at the end of January, happening alongside the discovery that the data banks interface directly with brains, rather than interfacing with computers.
It's a method of information storage not unlike the Psi-Net, and because of this similarity, it does not take very long to begin decoding it.
The alien species called themselves Protheans; and as far as anybody can tell, they were wiped out by the Harvesters.
Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It seems like the obvious solution. After all, an Assimilated item can be perfectly replicated every time, meaning that it can have ALL SORTS of experiments done on it, with none of them impacting any other experiment. They can have a group working on any databanks the relay may have, trying over and over until they can access them, and then split apart to research the target systems, the FTL communications required for such systems, the "normal" and "Harvester" activation codes, and more. They can set up their own relay network, with completely different codes, and thus settle planets that are not on the network.
Honestly, the scientific possibilities that Assimilation brings to bear are amazing. One of the biggest issues with researching something, is that every test you take will slightly change the item. Assimilation means you ALWAYS have a starting point perfectly the same, zero variation, which lends precision to your tests, and removes the need to be certain. After all, if you do it wrong and something stops working (Data wipe, explosion, implosion, shattering, system glitch, etc) you can just re-assimilate the broken version, compare the two versions, and create a new copy of the original to try again.
Beyond that, you can have two items that are completely identical, find the speed that every atom is travelling at in one of them, and the position of every atom in the other. And that is assuming you don't simply look at the Assimilation schematic, which ALREADY HAS THAT DATA! It bypasses some things thought laws of the universe, namely the Uncertainty Principle and Conservation of Energy/Mass
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Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
"Sorry, Turians, we kinda~ ate the Relay. Don't worry, though, we can get it back, good as new!"
Beyond the databanks, there is also the material that the gate is built out of - from surviving the kinds of damage it does to how long it's lasted, that stuff is top tier for durability. If I remember right from the first game, the Mu Relay that lead to Ilos was hidden because it a nearby star went supernova and it survived, merely being blown out of orbit and lost. Add to that all the random meteorite hits and any deliberate damage done from races at war...
- Location
- Russia
And then humanity is stuck in the position of being unable to get rid of the belief that they're actually Protheans in denial.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Then they can go "well, in that case shut up about AIs. They worked out just fine for us. Don't you backtalk your elders."
Because consider this: They have made an internet equivalent in a psychic medium. They can program things in a psychic medium.
How long until we get psytech AIs? AIs that, due to the medium they operate on, would be able to wander around in the Dream. The same Dream that acts as a revolving-door afterlife.
That's right: AIs with souls and as unable to die as the humans.
Can you hear all the other ME races screaming internally?
- Location
- Seattle, Washington, USA
This breaks Mass Effect canon -- the Protheans lacked most psionic powers, but they had refined psychometry into a super-science. The lack of psychometry in later species is why people had trouble figuring out Prothean databases without building Kludges from Hell to read them. It's also why the Beacon in ME1 messes Shepard up so badly.
Psionic Humanity won't have that reading problem. Where every other species -- including the Asari -- had to painstakingly reverse engineer mostly-broken technology, humanity is going to be able to get Prothean textbooks directly from the Prothean version of the internet. By the time they meet the Citadel races, they'll BE the Protheans tech-wise.
HFY indeed.
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We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Prothean Psychometry might have been something more like an Asari meld, using non-psionic means to achieve an effect normally associated with psionics. The fact that physical contact was required for Prothean psychometry supports this.
- Location
- Seattle, Washington, USA
Traditional human psychometry also requires physical contact. And if Asari melds aren't psionic, then there probably isn't any such thing as psionics -- after all, they're usable on other species, not just Asari-Asari.